Classic Marble Company (CMC), a leader in the imported marble industry, is strengthening its presence in the south by expanding its distribution network, according to Ramkrishna Swamy, Assistant General Manager, Retail Operations.
Mr. Ramkrishna said the 15-year-old company was offering over 500 varieties of stones, imported from over 40 countries. As the demand for the company's products was picking up, it was planning to expand the presence in the south.
He said CMC had already established a strong foothold in northern and western India. It had five dealers in Andhra Pradesh, four in Tamil Nadu and three each in Kerala and Karnataka. It was planning to have 15 dealers each in the southern States by March 2011, he said.
Mr. Ramkrishna said while north contributed 60 per cent of total sales, the south accounted for 40 per cent. “We are expecting our market share to grow in the coming years with the distribution network being put in place”, he said.
CMC, in 2009, launched Kalingastone, an Italian design, which has five series under marble collection and 7 series under quartz. It is an engineered marble and quartz product. The marble series were comprised 48 different marble samples while that of quartz 71 samples.
The company at present has four factories, two for natural stones, one where Kalingastone is manufactured and the fourth one is the marble crushing plant. The fifth plant was coming up at Silvassa for resin production. The factories were well equipped with imported automated machines and advanced processing technology, which are supervised by experienced European technicians.
He said there were, at present, no plans of a new factory but the number of production lines at Kalingastone (at unit III) had been doubled to cater to the increasing demand. One more marble and quartz production lines were in the pipeline. The company has seven showrooms including one in Italy. Mr.Ramkrishna said the company had reported a sales turnover of $50 million in 2009-10. The company has set aside Rs. 1 crore in the next one year for developing brand image in the South.
Around 20 new products would be added every year to the existing collection, he said.
